St Helens will be without loanee Jed Cartwright for around four weeks, as confirmed in their team news update, with interim coach Eamon O’Carroll offering a further update on the Hull FC man.
Cartwright, who is off-contract at Hull FC and expected to leave the club, was brought in on loan ahead of the loss against Toulouse Olympique but left the field early on in the derby against Wigan Warriors, picking up another quad injury.
After confirming that George Delaney would miss the remainder of the year following shoulder surgery, Cartwright also dropped out of the 21-man squad with Saints confirming that he’ll be sidelined for four weeks in what O’Carroll has described as a ‘real shame’.
“Jed will be with us, so it’s a real shame for him,” O’Carroll said, confirming the forward will recover at Saints as opposed to at parent club Hull FC.
“People see that Jed’s out now, what they don’t see is the fact that during that game, I think he did that injury within the first couple of minutes, and he was sending messages back to myself and the rest of the coaches saying that he wasn’t coming off.
“He understood the importance and he didn’t want to leave his teammates with a bigger task in hand than he already could, so he was just saying, I’m going to stay on until I can’t go any longer, and I think that’s quality from someone like him.”
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St Helens’ injury update with Nene Macdonald managed closely
Cartwright joins the likes of Mark Percival, Curtis Sironen, David Klemmer and Jonny Lomax as those who are out injured, but not necessarily done for the season.
When asked about that quartet, O’Carroll revealed: “Out of the lads you mentioned there, Percy’s probably the closest. I think he’ll be a couple of weeks, hopefully he’ll be able to join in some parts of training next week, which is, again, going to be a huge boost for us.”
He also asserted that the other three – Sironen, Klemmer and Lomax – will return to action in 2026, stating: “Certainly, we’re just not too sure when. There’s a few things they have to go through, a process they have to go through before we’ll have absolute clarity on when they’re going to be back.”
Nene Macdonald (knee) was another who O’Carroll offered an update on, noting: “He won’t be done for the year. Obviously, he’s had some ongoing issues with that (knee) so we have to make sure that we do the right thing for Nene and get all the right type of investigations done so when he does come back he’s at his best.”
O’Carroll admitted: “It’s been a frustrating year for Nene and there’s no one more frustrated than him. He’s desperate to be out there with the boys so I think it was yesterday he went and had an injection in there.
“We have to offload him now in terms of his training for a couple of days and he will train on Saturday so it’s more of a case of training him, giving him some exposure and seeing how he reacts but it’s looking positive.”
